Letter to the Editor - Not even the top general medical journals are free of spin: A wake-up call based on an overview of reviews

Ref ID 810
First Author D.P. Nascimento
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2021
URL https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(21)00194-3/fulltext#supplementaryMaterial
Keywords Abstract / summary
Spin
General medical
Non-Cochrane reviews
Journalology/ Publication science
Low methodological quality
Problem(s) Spin or subjective interpretation of findings
Errors in systematic review abstracts or plain language summaries
Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
Number of systematic reviews included 196
Summary of Findings From 196 systematic reviews of interventions from the top 5 general medical journals (1. The Lancet; 2. Journal of American Medical Association; 3. British Medical Journal; 4, Annals of Internal Medicine ; and 5. JAMA Internal Medicine) published between January 2011 and November 2017, 94% of abstracts and 67% of full texts presented at least one item of the 7-item SPIN checklist. The authors of the letter also observed critically low overall confidence in 77% reviews, 19% with low, 3% with moderate and only 1% with high overall confidence and report an association between abstracts with higher levels of spin and reviews with critically low methodological quality (ß 0.22; 95%CI: 0.14, 0.63), when compared to reviews of high methodological quality (ß -0.12; 95%CI: -2.69, 0.18).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No